Undamaged Goods

Andrea Harris was terrified that when she told her boyfriend about the most traumatic experience of her life, everything would change for the worse.

On our first date, he told me that he had wanted to ask me out since the first time he saw me, a year before. I called him on the obvious “line” and then asked what had taken him so long.

With complete sincerity, he replied, “You always seemed so together, so smart and classy. I didn’t think a woman like you would want anything to do with an average guy like me.”

Embarrassed by the compliment and the image he had of me, I laughingly accused him of calling me a snob. It was the “you always seemed so together” part that had embarrassed me so much on that first date and that now had me feeling nauseous as we drove to the park months later.

♦◊♦

Our dates had included fishing, camping, and boating, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary when I proposed lunch at the park by the river. He loved being outside, especially loved the water, and that’s why I chose the park to show him the news clipping. I was hoping that the setting would remind him how great the past four months had been and how cool a girlfriend I was.

But as we got closer to the park, that line, “You always seemed so together,” wouldn’t stop running through my head. If the reason he had found me so attractive was because I was so “together,” what would happen when he found out that I wasn’t together at all? I knew that showing him the news clipping would mean the end of his image of me.

He would ask questions, and my answers would reveal the real me. The real me still woke up screaming every few months, sometimes drank just to make the monsters go away, panicked when I couldn’t see an exit, was constantly conscious of men as potential aggressors, and instinctively felt like fighting every time my body was touched without asking.

I didn’t want him to know what had happened because I knew that what had happened made me “damaged goods.” I knew that once he found out the real me, everything would change. He would see me differently. He would treat me differently. When I wanted to be alone or not be touched, he would get angry and think it was because I was confusing him with the bad guy. When I was angry or sad, he would wonder if it was because I was still damaged. When he touched me, he would hesitate and wonder if I was really OK with what he was doing, if I truly enjoyed his touch.

I didn’t want to show him the clipping, but I had to. We were honest with each other, and holding this back felt like a lie. And the edges of my contained nightmare were starting to blur; the ugliness was starting to leak out into my life and our relationship. I needed to tell him the truth, to explain, before he decided that I was crazy. I needed him to believe that I had been that together woman before and that I would be again. If he believed it, maybe I finally could, too.

♦◊♦

Only a few other people were at the park in the middle of a work day, so it was peaceful and quiet. I smiled as I watched him dive into the food. He combined foods seemingly at random, telling me to “Watch this” just before stuffing one of the combinations in his mouth. If the combination was good, he would mount a huge bite on the fork to share with me. I liked watching him eat because he fully enjoyed himself, without even a glimmer of self-consciousness.

Reaching for the folded news clipping in my pocket was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. But I had to do it because I already loved him and needed to know if he would still love me once he knew. I had never been completely open with anyone about what had happened to me and how it had affected me. I had the most to lose right now, with this relationship, but that’s why I had to tell him.

As I unfolded the clipping, I told myself to breathe, told myself that it would be okay. If he didn’t want to be with me after today, it would be fine. Easy come. Easy go. Right? I’d survived a lot worse.

He didn’t seem at all worried when I told him that I needed to show him something, and I remember dreading how the look on his face was going to change. As he read, I pretended to stare at the geese on the water, discretely watching him out of the corner of my eye.

When he seemed to have reached the highlighted portion in the front page article, I told him, “That’s me. Where it says his crimes also include the rape of a college student, the ‘college student’ is me.”

I was shocked when he calmly refolded the clipping and handed it back to me. He told me that he knew, not exactly what had happened, but that something bad had happened to me.

“I figured you’d tell me when you were ready,” he said.

I had been so sure of what he would say, so sure that I knew exactly how men reacted to rape disclosures from the women with whom they were involved. I was completely unprepared for his actual response.

“Don’t you have any questions?” I asked.

“Nope.”

He assured me that although I could tell him whatever I needed to tell him, he already knew everything he needed to know. When I persisted that he must see me differently now and couldn’t help but feel differently about me, he smiled and said, “I’ve always seen you, and I still feel the same.”

I thought I realized why he was so calm: he didn’t really get it. So I told him how much the rape still affected me, how I still showed signs of damage, but he never once wavered in his insistence that how he saw me that first time was not only how he still saw me but also how I really was—was the real me.

He never once confused what had happened to me with who I was. When I told him how worried I was about how my post-traumatic stress disorder might affect our relationship, he smiled again and brushed a stray hair from my face.

“If you tell me what you need, I’ll do my best to give you that,” he promised.

With that promise, my nausea and my doubt dissolved. I realized then that I was in my first post-rape relationship with an actual good guy. I had thought everything would change once he read the news clipping, but the only thing that had changed was that my faith in man’s goodness had been restored.

The past seven years haven’t been easy. Sometimes he’s been better at giving me what I need than at other times, and I’m sure he would say the same for me. However, I have never doubted his words in the park that day. I have never doubted that the one who loves me sees me for who I am and not what was done to me. And that is something we all need to know.

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Very nice article, I liked it a lot and that’s a very personal moment to share. Frankly, I think we’re all “damaged goods.” We’re all just damaged in different ways. My wife is a rape survivor. At times that has caused quite a bit of consternation in our relationship. But like your story, I see her for who she is. Damaged, strong, vulnerable, crazy, compassionate, fiery, kind and generally wonderful. She’s all these things to me. The fact that she was victimized by a rapist is unbelievably unfortunate, but it’s part of who she is. For better or worse. All… Read more »

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Mariella

5 years 10 months ago

Thanks for this. It made me cry.

I’ve dated several men since being raped, but none have really been supportive. None have been the good guy. This gives me hope.

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Andrea

5 years 10 months ago

Mariella, hang on to hope. The first guy I dated after being raped caught me crying one night and told me to “just get over it like any sane person would.” It had been less than three months since the rape. The bad ones are out there, but so are the good ones. We all deserve a little hope, just like we all deserve a little goodness. I wish you both.

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Andrea

5 years 10 months ago

Thanks for the question, Rick. Yes, it did bother me that he could tell. I thought I was doing such a great job of playing the part of the perfectly together woman. For a while after I showed him the clipping, I wished he had pretended not to have known. However, now I realize that my feelings about him knowing were linked to the shame I still felt about what had happened to me. When being raped is shameful, then showing signs of having been raped is embarrassing. I used to be incredibly embarrassed about having had PTSD, but, soon… Read more »

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Rick

5 years 10 months ago

Andrea — did it bother you at all that he could tell that something had happened to you? I’ve always taken this approach when I’ve sensed this about a woman (friend or significant other) and just let her bring it up when she wanted to. I’ve generally assumed that it was something that would hurt her, to say that I could identify this about her. I’m not asking you to speak for all survivors, just to be clear, but I would be curious to hear your feelings.

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The other A

5 years 10 months ago

Your words give me a glimpse of what the many possible relationships there could be between partners. So many times the word damaged goods seem so fitting to my life after the assault and I really didn’t feel like I could have any other title. As the other comment stated that “unwittingly sabotage relationships” cause me to question a lot of previous relationships and current ones in evaluating my actions in them based on my idea of being “damaged goods”. I could say that light bulbs go off for all of us, in knowing that we are more than the… Read more »

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Andrea

5 years 10 months ago

Other A, I feel very fortunate to have found a partner who has never seen me as damaged, but it’s horribly uncomfortable for me to acknowledge that he saw me as undamaged before I could see myself that way. That message – – that we are not damaged goods – – is what I want to “shout from the mountain top.” I truly wish that every morning I could remind you and every other survivor that what was done to us is not us and that the only actions which define us are our own. We decide who we are;… Read more »

What a beautifully written article, Andrea. The correlation to “damaged goods” was so helpful to me. That self-characterization can become so internalized we don’t realize how broken we feel and then can unwittingly sabotage relationships in the fear of having to disclose what happened before the relationship began. Thank you for that insight.

I’m so thrilled your man was able to be there for you then, and still is…..sometimes people are stronger than we give them credit for…and more intuitive about what we try to keep hidden.

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Andrea

5 years 10 months ago

Thanks for commenting, Lili Bee. It is painfully hard to admit that I thought of myself as “damaged” and “broken.” Over the years I have heard so many survivors describe themselves with words like those. It used to make me sad; lately, it makes me angry. It is incredibly unfair and unjust that the victims are the ones so often left feeling ashamed and broken. No human being should be made to feel as though they are damaged goods because of what someone else did to them.